


Caution/Distrust

by redcandle17



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5629972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone else may be fooled by the War Boy Nux, but not Toast the Knowing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caution/Distrust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [svecounia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/svecounia/gifts).



Were they really not going to have a conversation about this? The same War Boy who’d talked about Joe rewarding him for capturing them, and then gotten onto the rig undetected and tried to strangle Furiosa, had gotten onto the rig undetected again and Capable had known he was there and she hadn’t told them?! 

_“He wants to help,”_ she’d said.

There hadn’t been any time for explanations when the rig was stuck in mud and the Bullet Farmer was shooting at them. But there was time now and nobody was saying a word. It was one thing to ally themselves with the road warrior. He’d been just as much a victim of the Citadel as they were. However, it was pure idiocy to trust a War Boy. War Boys were born and bred to serve Joe and to quite literally worship him. Maybe it wasn’t their fault that they were what they were, but there was no way one of them was just going to change his mind and help them escape Joe. It had to be some sort of trick.

“Can I have more of the green things?” the War Boy asked.

Capable gave him another serving of the salad they’d made from the produce the rig had been transporting. He smiled at her as he accepted it, and she smiled back at him, and Toast understood. Figured that that would be the reason the War Boy had decided to help them. She was disappointed in Capable though. 

Toast herself had noticed that the road warrior was very attractive and she was impressed by how well he handled himself, but how could Capable want to be with a man who was part of the war party pursuing them and who’d made multiple attempts to murder their rescuer so he could take them back to a life of being imprisoned and raped?

She couldn’t bite her tongue anymore when she saw Capable rest her head on the War Boy’s shoulder. Capable was _snuggling_ with him. Toast was utterly revolted. She was even more revolted when she thought about the implication of that easy intimacy between them. Surely Capable hadn’t fucked him already. Surely not. 

“Am I the only one who’s wondering what the hell this War Boy is doing among us and why we’re letting him stay?”

“Nux helped us,” Capable said defensively, looking hurt that Toast would want to exclude her new ‘friend’. 

Toast managed to bite back accusations regarding his motive for helping them. She looked to the Dag and Cheedo, but it was clear they had no intention of getting involved in this conversation. 

“Just hours ago he tried to kill Furiosa! Twice!”

“Three times actually,” Furiosa spoke up at last. “No, four. He aimed a shotgun at me first and then he tried to get in front of the rig to blow up his vehicle and damage my rig.” 

She didn’t sound like she was on Toast’s side. She sounded grudgingly admiring and even amused. Toast supposed Furiosa hadn’t completely let go of an imperator’s mindset and an imperator must be pleased with that kind of persistence in a War Boy. 

“He had you chained to him so he could steal the very blood from your veins,” Toast reminded the road warrior. Even he seemed readily willing to forgive and accept this War Boy, and Toast just didn’t understand it. 

The road warrior grunted. Then he cleared his throat and spoke more clearly. “He didn’t know better.”

That was exactly the point. Toast let out a frustrated sigh. The War Boy had spent his whole life as part of the Citadel; he wasn’t going to change because he liked Capable. She’d just have to keep an eye on him until they reached the Green Place. Furiosa’s people wouldn’t allow a War Boy among them, not when they’d been victims of Joe’s raids. 

But then it turned out that the Green Place was dead, and that all that was left of Furiosa’s people were a handful of older women ready and willing to use the guns they carried. Angharad would probably have been right there beside Furiosa, screaming to the sky. Toast chose to focus on the positive: she was alive and she was free. 

The air grew cold once the sun had set, but the sand beneath them was still warm. Toast tilted her head up and enjoyed the feel of the breeze on her face. It felt so good to be free. The vault might have contained great luxuries, but it had been hell for her to be trapped within. More than a thousand days locked within those same four walls. Hell. But it was finally over. 

However, her mood plummeted when she saw Capable and the War Boy get up and walk away from everyone else. She watched as they climbed into the rig’s lookout cab. Toast spat. 

“You don’t approve?” Valkyrie asked her quietly. 

The Vuvalini had accepted the road warrior and the War Boy because Furiosa had vouched for them, calling them ‘reliable’. The road warrior had certainly proved he was reliable. Although Toast felt uncomfortable contradicting Furiosa to Furiosa’s people, they needed to know what the War Boy was. 

“Two days ago he was trying to kill Furiosa and capture us for his warlord.”

Valkyrie looked surprised, probably at how recent a development the War Boy’s status of ‘reliable’ was. But she wasn’t alarmed like Toast thought she should be. She glanced at the light from the lamp Capable had taken with her. 

“People can change with the right incentive, and it looks like the boy has the most reliable incentive there is.”

Toast groaned in disbelief. “Not you too.”

Valkyrie chuckled. “I’ll keep an eye on him, though, just in case.” 

Toast, too, kept an eye on the pair in the lookout cab, right up until she finally fell asleep. She dreamt of the first hours of their escape, of hiding in the rig’s hold, not knowing what was happening and then hearing the awful cacophony of the Doof Wagon and knowing that Joe knew and he was after them. It was a relief to awaken to silence. 

She was disappointed that the road warrior chose to leave them, but Toast understood why he preferred to head back into the wasteland instead of journeying into the salt flats. There was no guarantee that there was anything beyond the salt flats. Furiosa had said they had enough supplies for a hundred and sixty days. They had to find somewhere before then or die. 

Toast would rather die of thirst than go back to being Joe’s slave, but she was surprised by how calm Cheedo was. Cheedo didn’t seem at all afraid as they rode into the unknown. Perhaps it was because the remaining Many Mothers embraced her as if she, as well as Furiosa, was their long lost child. 

The Dag, too, seemed to take to the Vuvalini, even if she had initially been disappointed that they weren’t what Furiosa had led them to expect. The oldest of the women, called only the Keeper of the Seeds, seemed to have taken the Dag under her wing. Toast was glad for her. As tough as the Dag tried to be, she’d been born and bred in the Citadel, and she needed someone to show her how to survive outside the gilded cage. 

Only Capable hadn’t started to make herself a part of the Vuvalini. She stuck by the War Boy’s side, and maybe she did it so that he wouldn’t feel alone among strangers, but Toast resented her for it. Toast was looking back at Capable and the War Boy on their bike when she saw another bike racing towards them. 

The road warrior had changed his mind. 

Or, rather, he’d decided to change Furiosa’s mind. 

Toast was impressed by how audacious his plan was. Seizing the Citadel would indeed be their best chance at survival, but the prospect of robbing Joe of his power was also gratifying. She fully supported the plan. 

The despair she felt as she was plucked out of the war rig and deposited into Joe’s Gigahorse was worse than the terror. They’d almost succeeded. They were so close to the canyon. If only the rig had been a little faster. Toast didn’t pray. There was no one to pray to; that was obvious from the state of the world. But she hoped and wished fervently. 

And then it was okay. They succeeded. The canyon pass was blocked, and the road warrior saved Furiosa’s life. They’d lost all but two of the Vuvalini, but she and Capable and the Dag and Cheedo had made it. Joe was dead and they were truly free. 

It wasn’t until Joe’s little War Pups had surrendered the Citadel and the platform was carrying them up that Toast realized Capable’s War Boy must have died. The best Toast could think of him was that at least he’d proven to be reliable after all. As far as she was concerned, no matter how solemn and hollow-eyed Capable looked now, Capable would be better off without the burden of loving a half life War Boy. He’d been doomed to an early death anyway. 

Toast knew better than to say any of that to Capable, though, so she merely slid her arm around her in a gesture of silent comfort.


End file.
